For years, Elizabeth Smart felt like her body was something connected to pain, survival and public scrutiny.
Now, she walks onto bodybuilding stages in crystal-covered bikinis and high heels with a completely different mindset.
Not because the fear has disappeared. Far from it.
During her first competition, Smart admits she was terrified. Her posing routine had been rehearsed endlessly beforehand, but the pressure of standing under stage lights in front of judges was something training could not prepare her for.
Then came the disaster moment.
A chunky ring caught in one of her hair extensions mid-pose, tearing out part of her hair while she was trying to keep her composure in front of the crowd.
“I just ended up ripping through the extension and just taking out a chunk of my hair, and then turning around and smiling,” she says, per NPR.
It would have been easy to panic and leave the stage. Instead, she carried on.
That moment now feels symbolic of the wider journey Smart has spent years navigating — learning how to exist in her own body again after enduring unimaginable trauma.
“I’m at a point in my life where I want to celebrate it,” Smart says, “I don’t want to carry shame about my body.”
Smart was only 14 years old when she was kidnapped from her family home in Salt Lake City in 2002. Held captive for nine months, she endured repeated abuse while the world watched the search for her unfold on television screens and newspaper front pages.
Her story became one of the most recognisable missing persons cases in America.
But while the headlines focused on rescue and survival, Smart says the emotional aftermath lasted much longer.
In her new book Detours, she reflects on how trauma changes a person’s relationship with themselves — especially their body.
“My body was hurt, and it had felt like it had been crushed,” she says. “But it carried me through.”
Even after being rescued in 2003, Smart says shame followed her for years.
Growing up in a conservative Mormon household where modesty and purity were heavily emphasised only intensified those feelings. At the same time, she was trying to recover while millions of strangers already knew her name and face.
“I had to always do the right thing, always say the right thing,” she says, describing the pressure she felt to become what she called “the most innocent of victims.”
These days, though, Smart speaks with far more freedom about who she is.
“I can be an advocate for women and children,” Smart says. “But I also can step on stage in a bikini and strut around and strike a pose. And that’s OK.”
Bodybuilding changed that dynamic completely for Smart.
She previously channelled her energy into running and eventually marathons before knee pain forced her to stop. But she still needed structure, discipline and a challenge to work toward.
“I always need a goal and I need a deadline,” she says.
Strength training became the answer.
Now, Smart trains at least five days a week, carefully monitors her nutrition and walks around 10,000 steps daily as she prepares for competitions.
Research has increasingly suggested resistance training can positively impact trauma recovery, with studies linking weightlifting to improved emotional wellbeing, confidence and reduced PTSD symptoms.
For Smart, bodybuilding no longer feels like punishment or escape. It feels like appreciation.
One quote from Jane Eyre has stayed with her over the years — a passage where Mr Rochester says he could destroy a bird’s cage but never destroy the bird itself.
Smart says that image resonated deeply with her experience.
Though her body endured years of pain, she says, “it never let my soul be destroyed. It carried me through my kidnapping. It gave me three beautiful children.”
She pauses before adding something she once never thought she would say aloud:
“My body is incredible.”
Smart is now considering another bodybuilding competition later this year in Nashville, this time at an all-female event honouring trauma survivors.
Not because she believes healing is complete.
“There’s no finish line,” Smart says. “I hope I never stop progressing.”
But because she no longer wants survival to be the only thing people see when they look at her.
“We can be lots of things,” she says.
Featured image credit: Elizabeth Smart / Instagram
